The Hound of Pennsylvania
by Falco aesalon
Summary: A man claims that a spectral hound committed the murder he is accused of. James and Sarah investigate. For LibertysKidsFans Halloween contest on deviantART. Rating to be safe. Loosely based on Hound of the Baskervilles... very loosely.


Dear Reader,

It was October of 1787 and I interviewing Mr. Samuel Barrymore who had apparently killed Mr. Mortimer, the local apothecary. It was a cold day for late October and I could have been eating dinner (Sarah's actually a pretty good cook when she puts her mind to it, but don't tell her I said that!) by the fire in the print shop for the _Pennsylvania Gazette_, but no, I was standing outside a freezing cold prison cell, interviewing a murderer. Why was I interviewing him? Well...

"I-I know it'll sound crazy," Mr. Barrymore said. "But it was... it was a hound. An enormous, black beast, foaming at the mouth and it had this eerie glow to it too. And then I must've startled it when I stepped on that stick because it ran off into the woods. So then I went over to see if Mr. Mortimer was alright, but he wasn't breathing. And then all those people came and found me and said I killed him."

"Well," I said, "thanks," and with that I turned to leave the stinking jail and get to the scene of the crime. The sooner I was done with this, the better.

"I know you don't believe me, but I know what I saw, young man." The sound of the old man's voice stopped me in my tracks. "It was a hellhound that killed him, I swear it."

With one last glance at Mr. Barrymore, I left the jail.

...

"Do you really think it was a dog that killed Mr. Mortimer?" asked Sarah.

"I don't know," I said as I shoveled stew into my mouth. "It totally looks like Barrymore killed Mr. Mortimer. But there's no injuries on the body."

"You really shouldn't talk with your mouth full, you know," Sarah scolded.

I glared at her for old time's sake, even though she had her back turned to me.

"It does sound rather ridiculous, don't you think? A giant dog killing someone?" Sarah turned and faced me.

"Well," I began, "I did find huge pawprints near the scene of the crime."

"Probably bear prints."

"Actually, they were exactly like a dog's prints except that they were much bigger than any dog prints I've ever seen. And then I found a tuft of black fur snagged on a bush-"

"So you believe that man's story?"

"I dunno. I'm gonna have to do some more investigating. I still don't have enough facts to base an article on," I said.

...

I decided that the woods would be the best place to look. I had to prove whether or not the hound existed. I started by interviewing the people that lived near the forest. Most of them didn't have anything important to say, but some of them said they could sometimes hear – in the words of one of the residents – a strange, unearthly howling at night.

Then I decided to investigate the forest, but after walking for a while, I realized I'd never find the beast unless it was dark. After all, the murder happened at night and the residents only ever heard the howling at night.

...

After another delicious supper, I was just getting ready to leave when Sarah stopped me.

"Where are you off to now?"

"I'm going back to the woods," I replied impatiently. "I need to see if I can find any evidence as to whether or not that hound exists or not."

"Wait," Sarah called as I opened the door. "I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not," I said. "It could be dangerous."

"Yes, I am," she stubbornly replied. "It's highly improbable that this so-called Hound-from-Hades exists, so there really is no danger."

"But-" I protested.

"We can either waste time arguing or we can be on our way already," Sarah said in an annoying matter-of-fact tone.

I sighed. "Fine," I said. I knew from past experience that arguing with Sarah is useless. It's probably her English blood; she's "tenacious" (to use a fancy word she uses sometimes) as a lobster, whether she's right or wrong. As much as I hate to admit it sometimes, Sarah's almost always right.

...

"Admit it James, we are lost."

I sighed, wondering why on earth I let Sarah come with me. Fortunately for us, the sky was clear and the moonlight was just bright enough to see by. Unfortunately, as Sarah was so kind to point out, we'd passed the exact same fallen tree at least five times. I finally sat down on the stump, ready to tell Sarah to try navigating the woods in the dark and see how she liked it when I heard a deep growling noise. It wasn't like the sound my stomach makes when it's empty, this sounded like an animal.

"James," Sarah began as she turned to me, "did you hear..." She trailed off and it almost seemed she was looking past me now.

I turned and the first thing that hit me was the smell. It was beyond awful, like all the disgusting crud on the city streets during the height of summer, but this was a thousand times worse. I found myself facing an enormous hound, foaming at the mouth with a ghostly glow around it.

"Run!" Sarah screamed. And run I did. I don't remember ever running so fast, not even when I ran from redcoats or Indians during the war. Maybe we ran faster than I thought or maybe the beast wasn't all that hungry, but somehow we managed to break out of the woods and we wound up in someone's field. I prayed the hound would give up the chase, but I looked back and saw that it was still gaining on us, its eyes flashing.

A farmhouse loomed ahead of us now and out of breath as I was, I managed to scream for help. Sarah took up the cry for help too, and I saw a light from the window and hoped they heard us shouting. I heard a door slam as I looked over my shoulder at the monster. It looked like it was hardly breaking a sweat chasing us and I knew we were doomed.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sarah trip and I panicked. I turned to help her and saw the beast bearing down on us. But then I heard a cry of "Get down!"

I instinctively dropped to the ground as I heard the sound of gunfire ring out through the night. A cry came from behind me and it definitely sounded canine.

I slowly stood up before holding out my hand to help Sarah up.

The man with the rifle ran over. "Are you two alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said, somewhat dazed by this turn of events. I walked toward the hound, which was still glowing, but it was lying on the ground didn't look like it was breathing. "Nice shot," I said. "I don't think that thing will be bothering anyone anytime soon."

The man nodded. "What is that thing?" he asked.

I was saved the trouble of explaining when Sarah groaned.

"Are you alright, miss?" the man asked.

"No," Sarah replied. "I think I twisted my ankle."

The man then picked her up and carried her to his house. He set her down in a wooden chair by the table and brought another chair to prop her leg up.

"Ugh," I exclaimed as I examined Sarah's ankle. "It's all swollen up!"

After some ice and a lot of explaining to the man who helped us, we decided to stay the night and see how Sarah's ankle was in the morning.

...

It turned out Sarah was feeling a lot better in the morning, so we decided to head back into town. Dr. Franklin was waiting for us when we got back to the print shop and he looked worried.

"Where have you two been?" he asked.

"It's a long story," I replied.

After we explained what happened the night before, Dr. Franklin leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He sat there for so long, I almost thought he'd fallen asleep. But then he opened his eyes and asked, "Have you gotten a close look at the hound yet?" he asked.

"Not yet," I admitted. "But we were going to go back and get it when we return the man's horse and cart."

...

Well, I'll save you the boring details of what happened next, but it turned out that someone had painted the dog with a paste that glowed. Of course, being a man of science, Dr. Franklin was very interested in how the paste was made, but he couldn't find anything of importance. We never found out who was responsible for the dog being turned loose, but it was decided that Mr. Mortimer saw the thing and died of sheer panic. Strangely enough, the people living near the forest could still hear the howling every once in a while.

Dr. Franklin thinks that Mortimer himself might have been behind the dog. He was the apothecary, after all, and he might have been able to mix the glowing paste. The dog might've turned on him, and, well...

Later, Sarah told us about a British legend she'd heard that sounded pretty similar; a big, black dog that brought death to those who saw it. She's headed back to New York now and you'll be pleased to know that her ankle wasn't hurt too badly and it won't take too long to heal.

I have to go write Henri and Moses now; I know they'd want to hear this story. That's all, I guess.

James Hiller, Journalist

Author's Notes: I apologize if the ending seemed a bit abrupt; the story was threatening to drag on beyond contest-submission length and I had to end it somewhere, didn't I?

As stated in the summary, this is somewhat based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's _Hound of the Baskervilles_. Sherlock Holmes is (I believe) public domain now and Doyle got the idea from the old British legend I mentioned in the story. I chose not to put this in cross-overs because the hound isn't really a character and Doyle didn't invent the black dog legend (not that he isn't amazing of course). As I said before, this was written for the group LibertysKidsFans's Halloween contest (which ended on November 11) on deviantART. I was originally going to have James and Sarah investigating werewolves, but then I thought "No, that's too much like Twilight and I don't wanna do that." So I picked hellhounds instead.

I may have to polish this up a bit more later. I started this probably in early October and I didn't finish until this month (I think Real Life was trying to make sure I submitted it to the group at the last second) and I was kind of rushing to get it done in time. I'd really like to know what you think; if you liked it enough for me to continue, if you didn't like it, etc. Or if you found any errors, it would be awesome if you to point them out to me so I can fix them. Thanks for reading!


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